This site is dedicated to protecting, sustaining and
enhancing all that we love about Sydney.

We
are currently "under construction" but have devoted a page to current
affairs in one of Sydney's historic villages, Surry Hills.

The
issue that has everyone in Surry Hills rather hot under the collar at the
moment is, of course, the proposed Bourke Street Cycleway.

Just
about everyone in Surry Hills has a bike - it's one of the most
bicycle-friendly suburbs in Sydney, due in large part to the old South Sydney
Bike Plan and the proximity of Moore Park's excellentcyclepaths - so there's a fair head of steam building up. We
cyclists were being blamed for a dastardly - albeit vague - plan to chop down
the Bourke Street trees to make way for our handlebars.

An
undated letter from Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, was distributed in
various parts of Surry Hills on Saturday 07 June 2008.

In it, Clover writes:

"I want to assure you that the Bourke Street cycleway
project will protect and retain healthy mature street trees on Bourke Street.
No trees will be removed in Surry Hills."

We would like to applaud
Clover for this decision. The wonderful old plane trees (heritage-listed by the
City of Sydney Council itself, no less) are sighing wearily in relief after
their narrow escape.

Clover also writes:

Giving priority to safety

Making the Bourke Street
cycle route safer and therefore more usable is a central priority for the
project. The proposal was based on evidence that bike lanes shared on road with
vehicles are more dangerous. The concept plans were developed by City staff
with expert and safety advice, following Council's unanimous adoption of its
cycling strategy last year. During the consultation and design process now
underway, the City will continue to access the best advice from Australian and
international cycling experts.

We are all very pleased to
hear this, as there are worrying rumours that everyone else who's tried to
build cycleways in similar inner-city areas, throughout the world, has ended up
with egg on their face and - on a more serious note - an awful lot of injured
cyclists and pedestrians.

The problem seems to be that
if you've got cross-streets every fifty metres or so you end up with a
"Clayton's" cycleway that propels novice cyclists out from their safe
separated lane - generally behind parked cars and vans - into complicated and
unprotected intersections almost as soon as they've managed to get both feet on
the pedals and work up a decent bit of speed. Vehicles and pedestrians simply
can't see them coming.

Just about everybody who's
built this sort of inner-city cycleway seems to have eventually decided that
it's much safer to create a "Bicycle Boulevard" by slowing the traffic down to bicycle speed and giving bikes equal rights with other vehicles on the main carriageway.

No doubt Council's experts
will demonstrate that Australia is indeed a "Clever Country" that can
prove the rest of the world wrong. We hope that they'll soon be able to share
their "expert and safety advice" with us, although we're a bit
puzzled by the fact that they carefully avoided the subject at their Public
Meeting at the Medina on 24 May, and wouldn't take questions from the audience.

In the meantime, we suggest
that safety-minded cyclists and pedestrians might like to seek reassurance by
browsing the Internet on the subject.